Life

Watch Those Due Dates

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Last Updated on February 6, 2022

With the current economy, credit card companies are looking for any excuse they can find to charge extra fees or raise your interest rates.

Sometimes, they’ll raise your rate even when they have no good reason:&nbsp  customers who have excellent credit and no late payments on their record are still getting notices that they’ll be paying higher interest on their cards because of “the growing costs of doing business.”

Most credit cards have a due date based on a specific number of days in a billing cycle, which means that the due date may vary by two or three days each month.&nbsp  For example, one month, your payment might be due on the 1st of the month; the following month, it might be due on the 31st of the same month or perhaps the 2nd of the following month.

The card I had the most problem with was my Bank of America Visa.&nbsp  Not only could they not seem to get their story straight over how long it took to post payments to my account when I made them in person with cash at one of their bank locations or online at their website, but their due date seemed to vary a little too much.

Once, they refused to give me a grace period for a payment that had been due on a Sunday; they claimed that I should have made the payment on the Thursday before to make sure it posted on time.&nbsp  I asked them why they’d make a payment due on a day when they don’t even receive payments to begin with, particularly had I sent the payment by mail.&nbsp  The operator I got countered that they receive payments seven days a week.&nbsp  When I asked how they managed to work out an apparently secret deal with the postal service so that they and they alone receive mail on the Sabbath, she didn’t have an answer for that one.

I paid off that card, so I don’t have to worry about these little incidents.

Generally, my due date fell on the 1st of the month.&nbsp  Once in a while, it might fall on the 31st or the 30th, depending on how many days were in the month.&nbsp  But I just received an email with my latest statement — still showing a zero balance, of course — but listing the due date for any payment I might otherwise owe as May 27th.

With the due date typically falling around the first of the month, that’s a full five days early.&nbsp  And if you’re not paying careful, meticulous attention to such matters, it could be an easy $39 late fee from your credit card company.

I called Bank of America and asked them about the odd date.&nbsp  They told me that the due date could vary by a couple of days.&nbsp  Five days, I pointed out, is not a “couple.”&nbsp  The operator looked into it and reported to me that he saw that the due date for my account had been changed to the 27th of the month.&nbsp  I asked him why it had been changed and who requested the change, and he had no answer for that.&nbsp  It may have been a system error, he suggested.

I asked him what might have happened if I had missed that date, and went on as normal to make an online payment on, say, May 28th, assuming my due date would have been May 29th at the earliest.

Of course, I’d have been billed a late fee.

I asked if, in such a scenario, I could have called, explained the situation, and have reasonably been expected to get that late fee refunded.&nbsp  He said I could have, because they would have seen what he was seeing:&nbsp  that the due date had been moved for no clear reason and by no request from me.

Still, it would have taken a lot of extra time on my part to track this problem down.&nbsp  By noticing this little problem, even on an account I already knew had no balance at all, I potentially saved myself some headaches down the road if I ever choose to use the card again.

Moral of the story:&nbsp  pay extra attention to your credit card statements!&nbsp  The little details you don’t know could cost you dearly.

the authorPatrick
Patrick is a Christian with more than 30 years experience in professional writing, producing and marketing. His professional background also includes social media, reporting for broadcast television and the web, directing, videography and photography. He enjoys getting to know people over coffee and spending time with his dog.

3 Comments

  • Yeah it was last month. I am considering writing them or calling, whatever it said, to freeze my rate. I just have to be careful not to incur any additional charges, they state they’ll crank it back up. And I liked BoA’s Visa because it had a pretty good rate, comparatively speaking.

  • They’re sneaky. BoA mailed me something the other week that said they were raising my APR on my credit card, because of ‘the current business environment.’

    • I got that same note last month or so, Chris. Now that I don’t owe them anything, they can raise the rate to their heart’s content as far as I care. When they lower it back down to where it was, I’ll be glad to use their card again.

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